prostrate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English prostrat,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin prōstrātus (“lying flat, laid low”),^[4][5][3][6] the past participle of prōsternō (“to throw down, strew in front”),^[4][5][7] formed from prō- (“forward, before”) and sternō (“to spread out, lay low”),^[5][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *stere- (“to spread”).^[5][6] It is related to stratum and strew.^[8][3] The OED compares Anglo-Norman prostrat, Old French prostré, recorded from the 13th century, and Spanish postrado.^[4] The verb is inherited from Middle English prostraten.^[2][5] Barnhart, Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary derive it from the adjective,^[3][5][6] while the OED and the Shorter Oxford take it from prōstrāt-, the participial stem of the same Latin verb.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a person, lying with the face to the ground in submission, humility or worship: c. 1390, in Savinian and Savina, a text the OED tentatively dates to about 1350.^[4] Barnhart likewise dates the adjective to probably about 1350,^[3] and Etymonline to the mid-14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began with a bodily gesture of submission or worship,^[4][5] and the verb, recorded from before 1425, first named the act of falling down in that way.^[4][5] The OED suggests that its intransitive use may have grown out of the reflexive one.^[4] The sense of being humbled in spirit followed almost at once, about 1425,^[4] although Etymonline dates figurative use only to the 1590s.^[5] From physical overthrow, the verb went on to mean knocking down something upright (1483), which Etymonline records by the 1560s,^[4][5] and then overpowering or humbling a person (1531).^[4] Johnson (1755) gave "lying at length" as the first sense.^[10] Exhaustion through illness or fatigue came late: the verb has it from 1780 and the adjective from 1820, in a letter of Thomas Jefferson's.^[4] Botanists have used the adjective since 1773 for plants that grow flat along the ground.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – adjective, of a person, lying face down in submission or worship.^[4] Barnhart dates it to probably about 1350.^[3]
• before 1425 – verb, to fall forward with the face downward, in the Ordination of Nuns.^[4][3]
• c. 1425 – reflexive verb, to throw oneself flat; adjective, laid low in spirit, in the “Book of Foundation of St Bartholomew's”.^[4]
• 1483 – verb, to knock down or level something upright.^[4]
• 1531 – verb, to humble or overpower a person.^[4]
• 1560 – adjective, of a tree, wall or the like, laid flat.^[4]
• 1773 – adjective, of a plant, growing flat along the ground.^[4]
• 1780 – verb, to weaken greatly through disease or fatigue.^[4]
• 1820 – adjective, physically exhausted, unable to rise.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Lying with the face to the ground, as a sign of submission or adoration: The pilgrims lay prostrate before the shrine.^[11][2][4]
2. Stretched out flat; knocked to the ground: They climbed over prostrate trunks after the storm.^[2][4]
3. Exhausted in body or mind; laid low by illness or fatigue.^[11][4]
4. Helpless, defeated or abject.^[11][4]
5. Of a plant, growing close along the ground.^[11][4]

Verb

1. To throw oneself flat on the ground, or bow low, in reverence or submission: He prostrated himself before the altar.^[11][2][4]
2. To knock down or lay flat: The boxer prostrated his rival with a single punch.^[11][2][4]
3. To make helpless; to overpower or humble.^[11][2][4]
4. To reduce to extreme weakness, as by disease or fatigue; often in the passive.^[11][4]

Word family

• prostrator

Related words

• prostration
• stratum
• strew
• prostern
• prostate

Usage notes

The stress of the verb has varied: the OED notes that its first edition (1909) marked the first syllable, and it now gives second-syllable stress as British and first-syllable stress as American,^[4] and Merriam-Webster gives the same British variant.^[2] Johnson (1755) noted that the accent of the adjective was formerly on the first syllable.^[10] The form prostrate gland, recorded from 1686, is an alteration of prostate, by confusion with this word.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins